Kent Melton obit

Kent Melton, Character Sculptor for ‘Aladdin,’ ‘The Lion King’ and ‘Coraline,’ Dies at 68

He helped fuel Disney’s animation renaissance in the 1990s, then worked on stop-motion films for Laika Studios. 

He was not on the list.

Kent Melton, the animation sculptor who created maquettes made of clay for iconic characters found in movies including Aladdin, The Lion King, Mulan, The Incredibles and Coraline, has died. He was 68.

Melton died Thursday at his home in Stone County, Missouri, of Lewy body dementia, family members told The Hollywood Reporter.

One of the few artists left in the industry who still sculpted in clay, Melton was a key player in the Disney animation renaissance of the 1990s. Later, he helped Laika Studios become a stop-motion powerhouse. Along the way, he was entrusted by animators to bring their two-dimensional drawings into a three-dimensional world.

Melton’s first Disney credit came on Aladdin (1992), followed by work on such other studio films as Thumbelina (1994), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998), The Prince of Egypt (1998), Tarzan (1999), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) and Pixar’s The Incredibles (2004).

For Laika, he sculpted characters for Coraline (2009), ParaNorman (2012) and The Boxtrolls (2014), for which he designed the film’s villain, pest exterminator Archibald Snatcher, voiced by Ben Kingsley.

Maquette, he explained in a 2015 interview for 417 Magazine, “is a term that goes way back to the Michelangelo era that means ‘model of something that will transform into a larger scale.’ I’ll sculpt a maquette in a character moment that personifies who they are to the story.

“I have to put body language into the pose to express and sum up who this guy is to the story. I try to capture their likeness and essence of personality and position in the story. From that, they scan what I do and then do all other expressions and poses and repositions on the computer.”

The second of three sons of an agriculture teacher, Melton was born in Springfield, Missouri. He spent a lot of time on farms and never attended art school. “The whole time I was compulsively doing art on my own,” he said. “Anything you do that much, you’re going to get good at it.”

Melton left his job carving wood and cutting glass at the Silver Dollar City amusement park near Branson, Missouri, and headed to Los Angeles, where he landed at Hanna-Barbera as the company’s first staff sculptor.

He sculpted characters from The Flintstones and The Jetsons and worked on the 1988 NBC animated show The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley, based on Martin Short‘s Saturday Night Live character.

He also freelanced for Warner Bros., creating sculptures for the 1989 show Tiny Toons Adventures, before Disney hired him after an executive at the company spotted Melton’s work at a birthday party he was hosting for his son.

For Aladdin, Melton worked on the first computer-animated character ever done in a feature animated film, the Cave of Wonders’ tiger head that talks and moves.

“When I saw it on film, I said, ‘It’s alive! I created this thing!’ It was scanned right off of my sculpture,” he said. “And it was so nice because I was just this kid who grew up on a farm, and here I am sitting in a theater with this giant character that I made happen.”

He also created porcelain-based sculptures — fine works of art — for the Walt Disney Classics Collection.

Survivors include his wife, Martha; children Seth, Jordan and Nellie, an artist and animator; and grandchildren Persephone, Toby, Juliet and Charlie.

“I try to interact with the medium as much as possible,” Melton said in his 417 interview. “Let the clay or paint tell me what it wants and carry on a creative conversation with the art to find out where it takes me. I love the process.

“When I was a kid, I never kept anything. I never cared about the final work; it was just the process that I loved. I love the experience of painting, drawing, sculpting, playing music, carving — anything. That’s what art is; it’s an experience.”

Animation Department

Casey Affleck, Bernard Hill, Anna Kendrick, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Tucker Albrizzi in ParaNorman (2012)

ParaNorman

7.0

character sculptor

2012

 

Samuel L. Jackson, Holly Hunter, Jason Lee, Craig T. Nelson, Brad Bird, Sarah Vowell, and Spencer Fox in The Incredibles (2004)

The Incredibles

8.0

character sculptor

2004

 

Treasure Planet (2002)

Treasure Planet

7.2

character sculptor

2002

 

Matt Damon in Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

7.2

character sculptor

2002

 

Michael J. Fox, Leonard Nimoy, James Garner, John Mahoney, David Ogden Stiers, Jim Varney, Jacqueline Obradors, Steven Barr, Corey Burton, Claudia Christian, Jim Cummings, Phil Morris, Don Novello, Patrick Pinney, Florence Stanley, Cree Summer, and Natalie Strom in Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

6.9

character sculptor

2001

 

The Road to El Dorado (2000)

The Road to El Dorado

6.9

character sculptor

2000

 

Minnie Driver, Tony Goldwyn, Wayne Knight, and Rosie O'Donnell in Tarzan (1999)

Tarzan

7.3

character sculptor (uncredited)

1999

 

Val Kilmer in The Prince of Egypt (1998)

The Prince of Egypt

7.2

character sculptor

1998

 

Eddie Murphy, BD Wong, Miguel Ferrer, Harvey Fierstein, Pat Morita, George Takei, Ming-Na Wen, Julianne Buescher, June Foray, Donny Osmond, Tom Amundsen, Arminae Austen, Mary Kay Bergman, Susan Boyd, Steve Bulen, Corey Burton, Mitch Carter, Robert Clotworthy, David Cowgill, Sally Dworsky, Beth Fowler, Donald Fullilove, Jack Gilpin, James Hong, Richard Steven Horvitz, Linda Kerns, Matthew Labyorteaux, Conan Lee, Dana Lee, Miriam Margolyes, Marni Nixon, Soon-Tek Oh, Elisa Gabrielli, Lea Salonga, Freda Foh Shen, James Shigeta, Jerry Tondo, Gedde Watanabe, Frank Welker, Matthew Wilder, and Sandie Hall in Mulan (1998)

Mulan

7.7

character sculptor

1998

 

James Woods, Danny DeVito, Matt Frewer, Bobcat Goldthwait, Amanda Plummer, Rip Torn, Samantha Eggar, Tate Donovan, Josh Keaton, Roger Bart, Jim Cummings, Paddi Edwards, Susan Egan, Cheryl Freeman, LaChanze, Roz Ryan, Paul Shaffer, Carole Shelley, Vanéese Y. Thomas, and Lillias White in Hercules (1997)

Hercules

7.3

character sculptor

1997

 

Kevin Kline, Demi Moore, Tom Hulce, Jason Alexander, Tony Jay, Paul Kandel, Charles Kimbrough, Frank Welker, and Mary Wickes in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

7.0

character sculptor

1996

 

Irene Bedard, John Kassir, Judy Kuhn, and Frank Welker in Pocahontas (1995)

Pocahontas

6.7

character sculptor

1995

 

Dom DeLuise, Cloris Leachman, Phillip Glasser, Tawny Sunshine Glover, and Charles Nelson Reilly in A Troll in Central Park (1994)

A Troll in Central Park

5.3

character sculptor (uncredited)

1994

 

Matthew Broderick in The Lion King (1994)

The Lion King

8.5

character sculptor

1994

 

John Hurt, Charo, Jodi Benson, Carol Channing, Gino Conforti, Kendall Cunningham, Tawny Sunshine Glover, Gilbert Gottfried, Gary Imhoff, Joe Lynch, and Michael Nunes in Thumbelina (1994)

Thumbelina

6.2

character sculptor (uncredited)

1994

 

Art Department

Teri Hatcher, Keith David, Dakota Fanning, Dawn French, Ian McShane, Jennifer Saunders, Christopher Murrie-Green, and Harry Selick in Coraline (2009)

Coraline

7.7

sculptor

2009

 

Matt Damon in Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

7.2

sculptor

2002

 

The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley (1988)

The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley

7.5

TV Series

creative designer

1988

13 episodes

 

Visual Effects

Kevin Kline, Demi Moore, Tom Hulce, Jason Alexander, Tony Jay, Paul Kandel, Charles Kimbrough, Frank Welker, and Mary Wickes in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

7.0

character sculptor

1996